An embodiment of a method of estimating storage system reliability begins with a first step of modeling a storage system design in operation under a workload to determine location of retrieval points. The retrieval points provide sources for primary storage recovery for a plurality of failure scenarios. The method continues with a second step of finding a most recent retrieval point relative to a target recovery time that is available for recovery for a particular failure scenario. In a third step, a difference between the target recovery time and a retrieval point creation time for the most recent retrieval point is determined. The difference indicates a data loss time period.